Flying Dutchman - The Weekly Fisherman

The Legend of the Flying Dutchman

The Legend of The Flying Dutchman is said to have started in 1641 when a Dutch ship sank off the coast of the Cape of Good Hope (southernmost tip of the African Continent). The story goes something like this:

Captain van der Decken was pleased. The trip to the Far East had been highly successful and, at last, they were on their way home. The Holland Company (his employers) wanted to start a settlement at the Cape on the tip of Africa, thereby providing a welcome respite to ships at sea. He was so deep in thought that he failed to notice the dark clouds looming and only when he heard the lookout scream out in terror, did he realize that they had sailed straight into a fierce storm. The Captain and his crew battled for hours to get out of the storm and at one stage it looked like they would make it.

Then, they heard a sickening crunch - the ship had struck treacherous rocks and soon began to sink. As the ship plunged downwards, Captain Van der Decken knew that death was approaching. But, he was not ready to die and screamed out a curse: "I WILL round this Cape, even if I have to sail 'til Doomsday!" So, even today, whenever a storm brews off the Cape of Good Hope, if you look into the eye of the storm, you might be able to see the ship and its Captain - The Flying Dutchman. Don't look too carefully, for many an old sailor has claimed that whomever sights the ship, will die a terrible death!

Flying Dutchman - Selected Sightings

While most people feel that the “origin” of the ship's fate is a Legend, the Flying Dutchman has been sighted by many reliable witnesses.
All of the following reports are from the Cape of Good Hope region. Lighthouse keepers in the region have also reported seeing her . . .

1823: Captain Owen, of the HMS Leven, recorded two sightings in the ship's log.
1835: Men on a British vessel saw a sailing ship approach them in the middle of a storm. It appeared there would be a collision, then the ship suddenly vanished.
1879: The SS Pretoria’s crew saw the ghost ship.
1881: Three HMS Bacchante crew members, including the future King George V (then a midshipman), saw the ship. The next day, the lookout fell from the rigging and died.
1911: A whaling ship almost collided with her before she vanished.
1923: Members of the British Navy saw her and gave documentation to the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Fourth Officer Stone wrote an account of the fifteen minute sighting on January 26th. Second Officer Bennett, a helmsman and a cadet also witnessed the ship. Stone drew a picture of the phantom - Bennett corroborated his account.
1939: People ashore saw the Flying Dutchman. Admiral Karl Doenitz maintained that German U-Boat crews had logged sightings.
1941: People at Glencairn Beach sighted the phantom ship that then vanished, just before she would have crashed into the rocks.
1942: Four witnesses saw the old ship enter Table Bay (Cape Town), then vanish. Second Officer Davies and Third Officer Montserrat, of the HMS Jubilee, saw the Flying Dutchman. Davies recorded it in the ship’s log.
1959: The vessel Straat Magelhaen nearly collided with the ghost ship.